​A few days ago, Eric remembered riding in a car with his parents around this part of the state. Every time they crossed the bridge, he would hear the same song playing on the radio – a 1970s hit. He tried to recall the name of the song, but it wouldn’t come to mind. I suggested “I will Survive” sung by Gloria Gaynor, and he thought I could be right. The conversation segued into Motown and R & B, and I asked him to play “I will Survive” on YouTube. We started dancing right away, Eric standing up, and I, in bed. I had so much fun that I decided to pedal the bike with my hands to the rhythm of “I will Survive” and “Hot Stuff.”
When the day came, I asked Eric to play those songs again. Eric obliged, and as soon as I heard Gloria Gaynor’s powerful voice, I started pedaling faster and “dancing” (aka moving the top of my body) all the while. And as I was dancing, my eyes welled up: I recalled another conversation with Eric, in which I’d learned about what had happened to me after I was already settled in a room in the hospital waiting for the operation; how I’d stopped swallowing and breathing, and the neurosurgeon and his team had to intubate me and perform an emergency operation. Eric said the neurosurgeon had saved my life. I remembered nothing about this episode – all my memories were about the (non-existent) first operation to extract my hemangioma.
After more than three years, I found out that I hadn’t had one but two death-threatening experiences. This discovery lent the song its actual weight. Listening to “I Will Survive” elicited in me the combination of three feelings: euphoria, desolation, and a will to look forward instead of backward. My cousin had been right (I write about her comments on another chapter). Doing my exercises faithfully meant more than listening to self-imposed high standards – it meant having a strong determination to live.

​As part of my rehab, I have to do exercises with my left hand: I have to relearn to move my wrist and open my fingers. This means that the muscles in charge of extending my fingers (the extensors) have to learn to obey my brain’s command to tighten. This means doing ten reps of the same exercise: relax my fingers; once they are beginning to relax, pull them very slowly with my right hand, and combine relaxing with pulling until I feel resistance from my left fingers; then, let go of these fingers and wait for them to close; and make a tight fist.
Since my injury, the extensors have been paralyzed, which has let the flexors (the muscles in charge of bending the fingers, in other words, of closing the hand) take over. As a result, the flexors have been dominating my hand’s movements. Yet, thanks to the action of a splinter that we’ve been placing on and off, my fingers have gone from totally to partially closed. So, this exercise is a dynamic between pulling to the outside to open the fingers, and pulling to the inside to close them.
I think of it as a battle between the right and left fingers; the right fingers want to pull the left to the outside, but the left resist. Both enemies are determined to win – it’s a battle to the death. To teach my fingers to open and thus be able to grab things (which would make it possible to do almost anything, from cooking to reaching a bottle of shampoo), I have to strengthen the extensors gradually. That way, they will take over my fingers’ movements and the victory of the right fingers will be assured.
Kelly, my former occupational therapist, came over to assess my (limited) progress and device new exercises that would help my arm movements improve. When she came, she referred me to Sabashni, one of her colleagues from the time she used to work in New York, whom she recommended warmly. Eric and I called Sabashni, and she agreed to help me. I went to her office on Saturday, and she was pleased with what she saw. So now she will teach me and Tammy, my nurse aid, new exercises to improve the movements of my left arm and hand. Then, I will do endless repetitions of these exercises, and the right fingers will triumph.